Where have I been?

Not being crafty that's for sure. I have made a few more mock ups of training pants but don't like what the results turn out to be. I am doing some light smocking this evening but having a hard time staying focused.

I need inspiration, but I don't need another project to add to the stash. Sigh.

Personal Sewing Time

SqueekMoo had a late nap. I should I known better than to let him catch a nap so late in the day, but he was so tired and i really wasn't in the mood to deal with a grumpy cranky little one. I think I have a mild cold.

Knowing he had a late nap, I didn't rush to put him to bed. We took out sweet time. He eat the left overs of his dinner when he ought to have already gone to sleep. I laid down with him for a while, but eventually he got tired of laying and played in his room.


I wanted to play with my sewing machine, and so I decided that if he was going to stay up he was going to have to amuse himself without me. Which is able to thankfully.

So I finished up the last of the little quilts I had pinned and ready:

I had a size extra tiny gown that had already been prepped, pleated, sewn and had the first row of smocking in. I was able to finish all the smocking on it tonight.

Trial Cake

Someone's birthday is coming up. As such I've made plans to once again bake him is birthday cake. This year though is a new cake recipe so I'm testing it out. The recipe that I used is from here.

This is actually test two of the cake. The first time was the first time i ever did anything involving egg whites. I quickly realized that it was close to impossible to whip egg whites into a meringue using just a fork. Since then a hand mixer has been bought.

I baked the cakes last night and made the custard as well. This morning i made the whipped cream.

I put come of the custard on to one of the cakes

Added a layer of canned fruit cocktail.

Another layer of custard and then the other cake piece.

Covered in homemade whipped cream

Chill. Cut. Eat.

Review: It doesn't taste exactly like what we expected. I don't think we normally have a custard filling with the fruit cocktail. MacMac says that he'll happily eat it as it though, not alterations required, unless i really want to figure out the differences.

Training Pants part 1

These are not the first training pants i've made. They are however the only ones we put on SqueekMoo and let him wear for any length of time. It's a mock up so the materials were all things found around the house:

-Brown 100% polyester fleecer from Hacncock fabrics for the waistband
-Blue print 100% quilting cotton from Fabrics.com for outer print (not waterproof)
-100% cotton flannel cut from a Carters receiving blanket for lining
-stuffed with a Gerber prefold left over from when we used them as burp cloths for SqueekMoo

After the pictures were taken we realized he has already peed in the pants. The outside was a little damp. They held up nicely. We put it in the wash. The prefold does not automatically come out in the wash.

Update: Aug 8
The mock up got retired today. SqueekMoo had a poop the consistency of a milkshake while wearing the mock up. It held up well, but poop did come out.

Charity Quilts

Like I said earlier, I was able to make some head way and finish a few of the quilts I'm making for charity. These quilts aren't very big all less than 24" square. Some are blocks from a block of the month thing i was a part of but never finished. Others were made using jelly roll size stripes from my stash as a means to reduce the overflowing quantities that I have. I had tried to do quilting then bind, but its my least favorite thing. I realized my dislike was preventing me from being productive so i switched to a sew then flip then topstitch method of finishing. Being that I'm doing minimal quilting i figured it would be okay. here's what I have done:

Being productive

My dad treated us to an iPad. It's a wonderful thing. I can give it to SqueenkMoo and he will put up with me at the sewing machine for sometime. Iwas able to make some head way on some small charity quilt tops that needed their backs. I have given up the notion of doing binding for my charity quilts and once I establish that things went quickly.

I dislike binding so the thought of having to do it slowed down my productivity on the charity quilts. Now I just need to get some more smocking and I can turn some things in and really call my deeds charity.